She couldn’t bear having him think she’d sought him out. “Chaz is sick,” she said flatly. “I drove over to check on her, and now I’m leaving.”

She set her shoulders and crossed the room toward the veranda, but he was at her side before she could touch the knob. “Don’t take another step.”

“No drama, Bram. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

“We’re actors. We thrive on drama.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I haven’t gone through all this, for you to walk out on me.”

The fury she thought she’d conquered burst into flame. “Gone through all what? What have you gone through? Look at you! You’re not even wrinkled. You’ve been having the time of your life!”

“Is that how you see it?”

“You’re producing and starring in a great movie. All your dreams have come true.”

“Not exactly. I screwed up with you, remember? The most important person in my life.” He trapped her against the French doors. “And I’m trying to fix that.”

She gave a dismissive snort. “How?”

He gazed down at her, his stormy eyes telegraphing an Actors Studio version of a tortured soul. “I love you, Georgie.”

Fireworks flashed before her eyes. “And why is that?”

“Because I do. Because you’re you.”

“You sound sincere. You look sincere.” She sneered and shoved his arm away. “But I’m not buying a word of it.”

Someone less cynical might believe honest pain tightened the corner of his mouth. “What happened that day on the beach…,” he said. “I know exactly how ugly it was, but I also got the wake-up call I needed.”

“Aww, that’s swell.”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me, and I can’t even blame you.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Just listen, Georgie. We’ve cast Helene. It’s a done deal. What ulterior motive could I still have left?”

No more of the quiet suffering that had followed her breakup with Lance. She let it all spew out. “Let’s start with your career. Three and a half months ago, I was the person willing to sacrifice everything to protect my image, but now it’s you. Your unsavory past was blocking your future, and you used me to fix it.”

“That doesn’t-”

“Tree House isn’t some once-in-a-lifetime project for you. It’s the first part of a carefully planned strategy to establish yourself as a respectable actor and producer.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having ambition.”

“There is when you still want to use me to prop up your image as Mr. Trustworthy.”

“This is Hollywood, Georgie! The promised land of the divorced. Who the hell-other than Rory Keene-cares whether we stay married?”

“Rory Keene. Exactly!”

“You don’t really think I want this marriage to last just so I don’t lose Rory’s good opinion?”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

“What I was doing. But that’s over. I’m more than happy to stake my career on the quality of my work, not on my marriage.”

Her heart had grown calluses, and she didn’t believe a word of it. “You’ll say anything to avoid a public rift, but I’m done with faking it just so people I don’t know will believe I’m someone I’m not. I’m ordering Aaron to stop talking to the press. And this time, I’ll make sure he does what I say.”

“The hell you are.” The transformation started in his eyes, where cold calculation shifted into mulish determination. And then he went a little nuts. He gave her a hard kiss then half pushed, half shoved her ahead of him toward the back hallway. “You’re coming with me.”

She tripped over her feet, but he had too tight a grip for her to fall. “Let go!”

“I’m taking you for a ride,” he retorted.

“Like that’s something new.”

“Shut up.” He pushed her ahead of him into the garage. He wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t exactly gentle either. “It’s time you understand exactly how much I value my respectable reputation.” He looked like the wild man of his past.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“We’ll see about that. I’m stronger than you are, I’m meaner than you are, and I’m a hell of a lot more desperate.”

Her fury burned hotter. “If you’re so desperate, why didn’t you try to talk to me as soon as you finished casting Helene? Why didn’t you-”

“Because I had something I needed to do first!” He shoved her into the car, and the next thing she knew, they were shooting down the drive and out through the gates with two black SUVs peeling after them.

He turned the air conditioner on full blast, too cold for her bare legs and thin T-shirt, but she didn’t ask him to turn it down. She didn’t talk at all. He drove like a maniac, but she was too angry to care. He wanted to break her heart all over again.

They hit Robertson Boulevard, which was bustling with Saturday-afternoon shoppers. She leaned forward in her seat as he screeched to a stop at the valet station in front of The Ivy, the paparazzi’s second home. “Why are you stopping here?”

“So we can make a promotional appearance.”

“You’re not serious.” One of the paps spotted them and tried to photograph them through the windshield. She’d left the beach house without a stitch of makeup. Her hair was a mess, her T-shirt exactly the wrong shade of blue to go with her wrinkled turquoise shorts, and she’d pulled on her beach sneakers instead of sandals. “I’m not getting out dressed like this.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t care about image, remember?”

“There’s a big difference between not caring about image and going to a decent restaurant in dirty shorts and grimy sneakers!”

Three more photographers pressed against the car, with others darting through the traffic to get to them from across the street.

“We’re not eating,” he said. “And I think you’re beautiful.” He jumped out of the car, transferred a wad of bills to the valet, and muscled his way through the shouting photographers to open the passenger door for her.

Mismatched T-shirt and wrinkled shorts. Bad hair, no makeup…and a husband who just might love her but probably didn’t. With a sense of unreality, she got out.

Mayhem erupted. They hadn’t been seen together in weeks, and all the paparazzi starting shouting at once.

“Bram! Georgie! Over here!”

“Where have you two been?”

“Georgie, is Mel Duffy lying about your meeting?”

“Are you pregnant?”

“Are you still together?”

“What’s up with the outfit, Georgie?”

Bram wrapped an arm around her and pushed through the crowd toward the brick steps. “Give us some room, guys. You’ll get your pictures. Just let us have some room.”

Pedestrians gaped on the sidewalk, patio diners craned their necks, and a trio of perfectly dressed purse designers interrupted their conversation to stare. Georgie briefly considered asking to borrow a little lip gloss, but there was something wildly liberating about standing in front of the world looking her worst.

He put his mouth to her ear. “Who needs to call a press conference when we’ve got The Ivy?”

“Bram, I-”

“Listen up, everybody.” He raised his arm.

Georgie felt dizzy, but she somehow managed to curl her mouth in a Scooter-grin. And then she stopped. No more pretense. She was angry, agitated, and sick to her stomach, and she didn’t care who knew it. She let everything she felt show on her face.

A crowd blocked the sidewalk. As shutters clicked and video cameras recorded the scene, Bram spoke above the noise. “You all know that Georgie and I got married in Las Vegas three months ago. What you don’t know…”

She had no idea how he’d spin this, and she didn’t care. Whatever lies he told were his own to deal with.

“…is that we were the victims of a couple of drug-spiked cocktails, and we basically hated each other’s guts. We’ve been faking this marriage ever since.”

Her head shot up. For a moment she thought she’d misheard. Bram was willing to stand on the front steps of The Ivy and expose it all?

As it turned out, he was. He told everything-a condensed version, but the facts were there, right through the ugly scene on the beach. She studied the determined set of his jaw and found herself thinking of the formidable movie heroes hanging on his office wall.

The paps had more experience with deception than truth, and they weren’t buying a word of it. “You’re punkin’ us, right?”

“No punking,” Bram said. “Georgie’s got this new thing about living an honest life. Too much Oprah.”

“Georgie, are you making Bram do this?”

“Have you two split?”

They attacked like the jackals they were, and Bram shouted them all down. “From now on, whatever we tell you is the truth, but don’t count on us telling you anything we don’t want to, even if we have a movie to promote and need the publicity. As for the future of this marriage…Georgie’s ready to bail on me, but I love my wife, and I’m trying my damnedest to change her mind. That’s all you’re going to hear from either one of us right now. Got it?”

The paps turned rabid, pushing and shoving. Somehow Bram strong-armed the two of them back through the crowd, holding her so tightly that her feet left the ground and she lost a sneaker. The valets managed to wedge the car door open, and she got inside.

As Bram pulled away, he nearly took out the two photographers who’d draped themselves over the hood. “I don’t want to hear another word about ulterior motives.” His dark scowl and unsteady voice left no room for argument. “As a matter of fact, I don’t want to talk at all right now.”

That was fine with her because she couldn’t think of one thing to say.

A circus train of SUVs followed them back to the house. Bram zoomed through the gates, pulled up to the front, and braked to a sudden stop before he turned off the ignition.

His labored breathing filled the suddenly quiet interior. He opened the console and took out a DVD. “This is why I couldn’t come see you earlier. It wasn’t done. I was planning to deliver it tonight.” He set the DVD in her lap. “Watch it before you make any more big decisions about our future.”

“I don’t understand. What is this?”

“I guess you could say it’s…my love letter to you.” He got out of the car.

“Love letter?” But he’d already disappeared around the side of the house.

She glanced down at the DVD and took in its hand-printed label.

SKIP AND SCOOTER

“Going Underground”

Skip and Scooter had ended after 108 episodes, but the label marked this as episode 109. Clutching the DVD to her chest, she kicked off her remaining sneaker and rushed barefoot into the house. She didn’t have the patience to fumble with the complicated equipment in the screening room, so she carried his cinematic love letter upstairs and slid it into the DVD player in his bedroom. She sat in the middle of the bed, wrapped an arm around her knees, and with pulse racing, hit the play button.

Fade in on two sets of small feet walking across an expanse of vivid green lawn. One set sported black patent leather Mary Janes with ruffled white socks. The other, shiny black boy’s oxfords that brushed the cuffs of black dress slacks. Both sets of feet stopped walking and turned toward someone behind them. The little girl whimpered, “Daddy?”

Georgie hugged herself.

The boy’s response was fierce. “You said you weren’t going to cry.”

Another whimper from the little girl. “I’m not crying. I want Daddy.”

A third set of shoes came into view. Black men’s wing tips. “I’m here, sweetheart. I had to help grand-mère.”

Georgie shivered as the camera panned up along sharply creased black slacks to a man’s long-fingered, manicured hand bearing a platinum wedding band. The little girl’s hand slipped through his.

A close-up of the child’s face came into view. She was seven or eight years old, blond and angelic, wearing a black velvet dress and a delicate strand of pearls.

The camera pulled back. A solemn-faced boy of about the same age took the man’s other hand.

Cut to a wider angle showing the tall, lean man and two small children from the rear as they walked across the manicured lawn. A shade tree appeared, a broader stretch of lawn, more trees. Some kind of stones. The angle expanded.

Not stones at all.

Georgie pressed her fingertips to her lips.

A cemetery?

Suddenly the man’s face filled the screen. Skip Scofield. He was older, more distinguished, and perfectly groomed, as all the Scofields tended to be. Crisp, short hair, tailored black suit, a respectable dark burgundy tie knotted at the neck of a white dress shirt. And deep lines of grief etching his handsome face.

Georgie shook her head in disbelief. He couldn’t possibly-

“I don’t want to, Daddy,” the girl said.